Honest Comfort
by Loveforthestory
Summary: "He is here and he seems to get her, to understand her. To stand still with her for just a second. Always there somehow when everyone else is busy outrunning their own demons. It's the both of them again." A one shot of hidden emotions finally breaking through. Charloe.


Honest comfort

Charlie walks in to the kitchen. The sun is falling through the window. It is left behind by people who once called this their home, a forgotten coffee cup on the table.

She had spent most of today's hours watching Monroe's shoulders move when he walked in front of her. Hearing his breath and boots behind her when she had taken the lead. They are on a mission for more intel and are doing a sweep of the abandoned house for supplies.

Charlie had spotted it first, close to the trail they were following through the woods. She had shared one look with Monroe who told her with a yes in his eyes that is was worth checking out. He had been behind her, guns in both their hands, intense blue focus in his eyes, to cover her when she had walked in.

The rooms are dark and stuffy. She hears him in the other room. She walks into the kitchen, every intention on checking the cupboards for anything that could be useful. She is not picky, she is practical.

The sun streams into a broken kitchen window.

Drawings made by children's hands have been proudly placed on the fridge, magnets keeping it in place. A postcard from a city across the ocean with its old alleys and warm sun kissed colour on the walls of the houses with mountains in the distance next to it.

A grocery list on the kitchen table. There is an old College catalogue and a college application on the table, filled with programmes and the promise of an education and a new start between campus walls. It is a College , Charlie knows from Aaron's and her father's stories. There are some pens, an old phone. People lived here. But not anymore.

And it catches her of guard. The family she will never have, not in this world. Not when there is no man out there who will love her for what she has become. The travelling she will never get to do, the world she will never get to watch. The sun she will never get to feel when she walks around in new cities to explore and all its rich history. The college she will never get to attend. The graduation and sense of accomplishment and content and independency she will never get to feel.

The person she will never get to be.

She won't allow herself any of it when she pushes the emotions of missing things she never even had back. Because she does not know everything, by far. But she does know her family's signature is under the world she knows now.

Charlie does not linger in feelings she does not think she gets to feel. But it is all around her now in this kitchen, the silent reminder of a life she will never get to live. That will never be hers.

And it is grey deep sadness for what she will never be that is followed by rage that makes her lash out to the shelve with glasses and cups and bowls right above her. And with one angry enraged frustrated hurt and a sigh and muffled scream of agony,she is sweeping everything of it in one violent heartbreaking sad swipe of her arm.

When everything has shattered to the floor, the ceramics, the glass fragments splintering on the floor and sharp like the damage to her heart, the silence is deafening. And she just stands there, breathing hard and pushing numb tears back into her chest.

Bass is with her in a heartbeat. He had been outside, checking the parameter again before he would move back in the house to check if she has found anything useful.

The shattering sounds coming from inside and violent images of what could be happening to her, stopping him cold. His gun out in seconds, reaching her in moments with his hands around his gun. His swords close. Ready to kill.

Instead of those images becoming reality he finds her standing looking phased out, pale and in the middle of broken glass, and fucking bowls on the ground. The fragments of what used to be coffee mugs and bowls and glasses sharp and ready to hurt. She is waving on her feet. Bass feels his heart hammer in his chest as he lowers the gun back to his body.

He follows her eyes and looks at what she is looking at. A fucking college application is on the table. He scans the room quickly and does not miss what is placed on the fridge.

'Charlie, don't move okay. I will get you.' His voice is somewhere between a plea and an order. He swallows thickly, as his voice is slow and reaching for her.

She does not look up. Her eyes now going to the postcard in front of her, taped to the fridge.

Bass walks around the glass as best as he can. And then, because she is not moving and he fucking hates to see her this way and he is worried out of his damn mind ho moves one large arm around her lower back and lifts her against his body and away from the glass. The college application on the table, the painting. The postcard. And the kitchen.

Charlie hears him. But she cannot look at him. Shame is filling her, through the numbness that he had to get her. She feels weak somehow. She does not do weak. Not in front of Monroe. She feels him through her tears and pain so big it numbs her. His fingers wide against her lower back, his large arm around her side and her body now against his.

When Bass has walked her outside he moves her to the porch. He places her slowly on the first step, as he crouches down a couple of steps below her. He looks at the ground and then looks at her again.

She is pale, her eyes red and swollen and on fire against the paleness of her skin. Her hair flows around her face. Her lips are wet from her tears.

'Charlie, hey...what's going on?' He wishes he had a better grip on his voice.

Charlie slowly looks up at him, and he sees something new in her eyes he does not know.

It is shame.

He waits, nods.

Charlie scrapes her throat. 'There is just so much life you guys got to have, and I will never get to try.'

It is like taking a bullet. She has tried to kill him a couple of times in very diverse ways but now she manages to fucking kill him right here with that sad guilt filled line. You. You. Miles. Him. Rachel. Ben. All of them. Years before the blackout, years in Philly far away from her when they all should have been the family to her she had to miss.

He curses something in his head as his voice is low and soft and ripped with pain.

'Fuck...Charlie...'

Her eyes in that pale face of hers are filling with new tears.

'And I know, life then was hard and far from perfect too , but I would have loved to get to live just a little of it.'

There is something in her eyes there that tells him she knows, Miles must have told her about his family. About what life had cost him that day one driver ripped his family way from him.

Charlie hears herself talk and somehow the words flow, somewhere inside she feels pissed at herself, for letting this happen. But she is tired, so tired. Sleep is something that does not want to work for her, nightmares threatening her every time in her sleep. Nightmares that no one can save her from.

And now he is here, Monroe, Bass. He is here and he seems to get her, to understand her. To stand still with her for just a second. Always there somehow when everyone else is busy outrunning their own demons. It's the both of them again.

And she feels torn between who she is now, fighting for the ones she loves and for herself, no matter how many times her mother or anyone else questions that. She knows who she is. But she is also torn with who she could have been, and she rarely let the lock of that door, but right here, on this porch, and in front of him, there is no stopping it.

Bass feels her pain through his fucking chest, and when it comes to her he has not the best track record of keeping his emotions in check.

He cannot push back the fucking tears. He presses his lips together and tilts his head to the ground, unable to look at her.

Charlie feels the tired tears in her chest. But then she looks at him. At Monroe. And her tears are in his eyes. Making his eyes wider and a lighter kind of blue. Making her see a man she never got to see. Until today.

When he looks up, he finds a Charlie looking at him. Her eyes reaching him in a way they never did before.

He reaches out for her, with one arm. He wraps his arm around the back of her head as he waits. She does not resists, a tired sigh between her mouth and his jaw. And then, Bass guides her to the nook of his neck where he feels he can shield her from some of her pain for just a fucking second.

Charlie feels the warmth of his neck, his hand large and wide around her neck and back of her head. It is warm and dark there in the nook of his neck, someone looking out for her. Him looking out for her.

She feels him swallow, his Adam's apple so close and vulnerable to her cheek. She feels him cry into her hair. And she is tired, god she is. But she still moves a hand around his arm and shoulder, wrapping herself around his back and pulling him close to him.

Bass feels her each out and just buries his face in her hair, letting her in, just for one fucking second. She is breaking him and putting him back together all at the same fucking moment.

It is getting dark around them. The night warm, the air soft. The forest around them silent. She lets herself take his comfort, just for a while.

And then, she moves away from his chest. She feels her exhaustion in every piece of her. When his eyes find her again they are filled with concern. Bass feels the tremble in her arms. He reads it in her eyes, that she won't allow herself to feel any more comfort.

'Come here..' He whispers roughly.

Charlie's heart is trying to remember when somehow gave her such honest comfort. She honestly can't remember.

Bass sees the hollow in her eyes, he knows she is just like Miles. Pushing herself until they cannot stand on their fucking feet anymore. And there it is, concern for her. Ripping through, ripping through the walls of things he should not feel for her. He can handle lust and need for her in ways he should not feel. But this, this is danger, too close, too personal. But he cannot stop himself, he cannot help himself. Not with her.

He moves some hair out of her face. And moves her head gently into his lap. She lets him guide her, his touch soothing her and bringing back the pull of sleep, knowing she can sleep. Somehow when he is around, she knows she can. She is exhausted with pain and grieve for the life that will never be.

But today between everything that is never going to be, he is here.

Bass reaches out to grab his bedroll. She just observes as he places the blanket over her. She is warm, and her head is in his lap.

And it is knowing how close he is, his gun close, his knives too to keep watch with him as she sleeps that makes her relax, her eyes closing as she watches his boot on the steps of the porch under her.

Bass watches Charlie, so damn close. He moves some hair out of her face, her hair he cannot control himself to stop touching. He feels her so damn close. The curve and weight of her body so close against him. He does a quick scan of the tree line. And he sits. And feels her fall asleep.

His jaws sharp and filled with everything the hell just happened.

Charlie feels like there is someone who understands her after all. Who makes an effort to understand what is going on inside of her. It is him. Bass. And it is the comforting weight of his arm that does the rest. Monroe's arms is all around her back, his hand resting on the fabric of his bedroll that smells so much like him, his warm fingers on the round arch of her hip and upper leg that are soothing her into deep sleep.

For now, she lets herself just be, with him.

* * *

 **Auhtor's note: I always am intrigued by the fact how strong Charlie is. But somewhere in her, I believe there is still so much grieve for the woman she is not now, for the life she never got to have. Understanding her family's part in that world she lives in now. That's what this one shot was all about. Thanks for reading! Love from Love**


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